Can Howard relieve tense Lakers fans?

Jan. 24, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Trading Pau Gasol, left, and Andrew Bynum to get Orlando's Dwight Howard might be a risky but wise move for a Lakers team looking to remain a title contender in the post-Phil Jackson era. HARRY HOW, GETTY IMAGES

Trading Pau Gasol, left, and Andrew Bynum to get Orlando's Dwight Howard might be a risky but wise move for a Lakers team looking to remain a title contender in the post-Phil Jackson era. HARRY HOW, GETTY IMAGES

So, with the Lakers having lost three in a row and with the Clippers poised today like a mousetrap awaiting a naked big toe, the Dwight Howard question must be considered.

Today, more seriously than ever.

No, not should the Lakers trade for the Orlando center, but rather, can the Lakers win anything again without him?

Few franchises in sports arrive at desperation quicker than do the Lakers, who have only their past championships and rightfully spoiled fans to thank for that. When it's NBA title or nothing, losing streaks will be received as comfortably as abdominal distress.

Most Lakers followers have the patience of a lit firecracker. They also like to be heard just as much, especially when their team is losing.

After the home defeat Sunday to Indiana, suddenly people were calling on the Lakers to trade for the mighty Roy Hibbert and lamenting the absence here of someone like Paul George.

Personally, before the game against the Pacers, you could have told us his name was George Paul and we would have believed you. Now, just imagine if Paul George had a buddy named John Ringo ...

But let's get back to Howard, since he remains the axis on which this Lakers' season continues to rotate.

ESPN's Chris Broussard, whose goatee knows more about basketball than we do, said Tuesday on TV that, if he were Mitch Kupchak, he would trade Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum if that's what it took to acquire Howard. In that deal, Broussard proposed, the Lakers also would receive Hedo Turkoglu.

So, would you make that trade?

Initially, we considered Broussard's suggestion ludicrous. Well, to be honest, initially we considered firing a tennis shoe at our television. Then we concluded that Broussard had the common sense of dish soap.

The idea of including both Gasol and Bynum in a Howard swap has been out there for some time. But we've always categorized it as preposterous, like the notion of giving Prince Fielder a nine-year contract. Please.

After this suggested trade, the Lakers still would have only three legitimate NBA starters. Sorry, but how many other contending teams would have Derek Fisher among the first five? Or Matt Barnes?

Hey, we're just like everyone else. We love Fisher, too. A more professional athlete has yet to be invented. But it's hard to imagine this team winning another title with Fisher as its lead point guard.

We also have nothing against Barnes personally, although he has gone a little heavier on the neck tattoos than we would have. The reality is he's probably a seventh man on a very good NBA team, which the Lakers are supposed to be, right?

As we began to contemplate Broussard's trade proposal more, one thing kept rattling our brains:

What was feared preseason now is being realized in-season. These Lakers, as constructed — or destructed — just aren't good enough anymore.

They figure to improve, right, as they find more familiarity in new coach Mike Brown's system? Breaking from a strict diet of Phil Jackson requires time, if not a full-blown intervention.

But since the day Lamar Odom was subtracted and no one more significant than Josh McRoberts was added, the concern has been that the Lakers went from being not good enough to survive the postseason's second round to being noticeably worse.

They don't have the length they once had or the depth. The loss of Steve Blake hasn't helped, but how much of a difference can one Blake make? Then again, Jason Blake's return righted a Ducks' season gone violently bad.

This CliffsNotes of an NBA year also fits these Lakers like a pair of one-legged shorts. We turned the channel the other day and missed two Lakers games and 62 Kobe shots.

The condensed schedule is best absorbed by younger legs, and, among the Lakers' top seven in minutes per game, only Bynum hasn't marked his 30th birthday.

Speaking of aging, everything the Lakers do at this point is tied to the ticking clock that is Bryant's body. Unless one of his vital organs is a snooze bar, the Lakers better figure out something quick.

If the Lakers do nothing big, if Kupchak counts mostly on self-improvement, can you see this team winning a championship? In the NBA, we mean.

The Lakers could be looking at a lost season, another year of tread removed from Bryant's legs, and maybe they still don't acquire Howard.

If the Magic do move the center, it likely won't happen until near the trade deadline in mid-March. By then, the desperation league-wide should be approaching Laker Nation levels.

And by then, the reality of having to include both Gasol and Bynum in a Howard deal could be as cold and undeniable as this fact:

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